


Masks

by cadesama



Series: Roadtrip [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Accidental Marriage, F/M, Humor, Spoilers, i assume they are cousins, so this is probably incest, well kind of, you will probably see many more family roadtrips from me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-19
Updated: 2016-01-04
Packaged: 2018-05-07 16:52:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5463962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cadesama/pseuds/cadesama
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A quick bit of Reylo. Rey is neither a fan of Kylo's mask or his face.</p><p>(Or: Rey and Kylo hit the road and visit Mustafar. Nothing bad has ever happened to a Skywalker on Mustafar!)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

"Rey."

Ben's voice came garbled through his mask, tone stronger than Rey knew it to truly be. She lifted her eyes from her bound wrists, settling back in her seat – the co-pilot's, though Ben refused to let her actually taking the controls into her hands. He wished for all the trappings of cooperation, of family and friendship, but none of the trust. He was too much of a coward for that.

"Yes?" she asked, head cocked to the side. "You sound absurd, by the way."

She felt a tremor of emotion in him, the foundation on which a terror of entirely too much – rage and fear and pain and even love – would soon build. It was such a stark comparison to Luke. He felt and felt deeply, but knew to let it pass over him rather than sweep him away.

"I sound as I am," Ben said. She couldn't tell if there was a genuine glint of humor there, or if she only imagined it.

"Regardless," she drawled, "I would take your instructions a bit more seriously if you took that stupid thing off."

Ben tipped his head. He raised up his hands, helmet fastenings snicking as he opened them with the Force before he took the helmet off, resting it in his lap. His gloved fingers stroked idly over its brow, as if it was someone else's, a beloved figure in his life.

Vader, she expected. Rey considered the fact that her newfound family was full of lunatics.

Ben watched her appraisingly. His lips curled hesitatingly into a smile.

"Is that better?"

Rey lifted her chin and narrowed her eyes. The voice filter was gone, but of course now she was left with Ben's actual face in front of her. There were probably a few in the galaxy who found him handsome. She was not among them.

"Not terribly," she replied. She shifted in her seat and Ben slid forward immediately, fingers stroking over her sore wrist. She pressed her lips together in irritation. "Perhaps the mask on, but the vocoder off?"

Ben's wide, vulnerable eyes filled with anger.

"Why?"

"Because I don't like you much," she lied.

A smile cracked on his face, giving all illusion that the moment had passed. In the Force, the storm continued to build.

"Why are we going to Mustafar?" she asked.

"You'll see," he said. There was genuine excitement on his face and in his voice.

She'd done it to herself, but it was hard not to turn aside. Poe, she decided. She'd think of Poe. Safe, handsome Poe; he'd become the brother she never had, as close to Leia as she herself was growing. Or Finn – 

Rey cut that thought off. She didn't want to associate Finn with this. He was too good and she cared entirely too much.

Ben's eyes darted around her face, jaw clenching and mouth forming a trembling pout.

"Him? You think of him now?"

The truth was she needed to ground herself. Perhaps she was a coward of the same kind as Ben – or inverse. He immersed himself in everything he felt, coveted it and held it close. Hurt himself again and again because that was power. She distanced herself from what she really loved to maintain control.

But then again, she was here with him, on a fool's errand to learn about the horrors of her family, all in hope that she could truly find a place to fit in. And somehow Ben was a part that.

The anger and hurt was still plain on his face.

"I like Poe," she offered simply.

"He's not even family!" Ben protested. He moved forward, even closer to her. He turned her hand in his, cradling it and rubbing his thumb across her palm. The sensation tingled in a jolt up her arm. "He's not like us."

"I don't know what you think is going to happen, Ben," she said, holding his gaze.

She'd hoped for a rage and instead got a laugh.

He sat back abruptly, half covering his face with his hand. Better, she thought to herself. She could barely see him.

"Oh, cousin. I could ask the same of you."


	2. Chapter 2

The sky glowed a dangerous orange when they landed, blotted in places by billows of harsh, black smoke.

The heat of Mustafar was brutal, seething in a way that reminded Rey of nothing at all. Perhaps Starkiller as it charged, core churning with energy sapped from a dying sun. It was entirely unlike Jakku. The sun there could sear a person to the bone, leave them to desert hawkers who would, in time, find use for the bones. But that was external, distant, clarifying. Mustafar’s heat thrummed from the inside, a constant destruction of self.

“This planet suits you,” Rey said.

Ben turned on the landing platform. His mask was once more affixed to the fastenings on his cowl, but that did little to hide the intensity of his gaze.

“Thank you.”

His sincerity, as always, felt perverse.

“This is not where it happened,” he added. He turned away, and Rey could feel him stretching out in the Force, seeking. It was tempting to follow him along that path. He gestured abruptly, pointing to a point along the bank of the lava river. “Come.”

Control vanes shimmered blue as they directed the flow of molten rock. He was right. Vader had been born in that spot, where technology leashed the power of this hellish world. She could feel the draw of that place, the stain in the Force that compelled her to step forward, its gravity pulling her mind toward the past.

With a jerk, she snapped out of it.

“I think not.”

He extended his gloved hand to her, beckoning and admonishing. Her reaction was kneejerk, she knew that as well as he did. She’d come along with him for a reason.

Primarily that he’d captured her, she thought irritably. So there was that. In addition, she was haunted by the same horrible curiosity as he.

Rey raised her bound hands and waited for Ben to make the decision. His sigh was an electronic wheeze through the distortion of his vocoder, but he waved his hand and the binders fell hard to the basalt platform.

“You could have freed yourself,” he told her.

Rey bit her lip, ignoring his words in favor of his gloved hand, his fingers splayed impatiently. She could have beaned him on the head days ago and made her escape. She could likely call his ridiculous saber to her hand now, cut him down and be free of this. Avenge her uncle and bring final, terrible peace to her aunt.

That wasn’t where she was here for.

Nonetheless, though she loathed the feel of his large hand as it enfolded her own, there were tactical considerations. She was actually quite practiced in warding off heat, though she’d never realized she’d used the Force to do it until Luke introduced her to the technique and refined her skills. But anything that cost Ben concentration and power was worth it. Even if it meant holding hands.

Ben held her hand with a delicacy she hated to feel from him, mask angled as he looked down at it.

“Where are we going?” she asked him.

“You’ll see.”

Rey huffed out an aggravated breath. She looked away from him, looking over the landscape as Ben carefully turned her hand between his, fingertips aligned with hers. The feeling was … intense. She blinked it away, shading her eyes with her other hand.

“What’s that?” she asked, pointing toward an outpost she presumed was their destination.

Ben did not look up.

“A mining facility. Mustafar once refined ore from its molten rivers. Even in Grandfather’s day, they produced metals for the Imperial fleet.”

“And now?”

“Defunct.” When Rey looked back at him, he shrugged simply under his bulky cloak. “Why, were you hoping for a tour?”

“Well, I presume that is what we are here for.”

“Oh, cousin. It is much grander than that.” His voice had turned rapturous. She could imagine his chin lifted, his eyes closed. A smile that was genuine. He seemed to lose himself for a moment, before he added with satisfaction, “You’ll see.”

There was a part of Rey that was imbued with good sense. She’d survived Jakku on her own for more than a decade, after all, and it wasn’t by taking foolhardy risks. All she’d done since leaving, of course, seemed to point to a decided change of personal philosophy.

It was reckless to stand on this world, to seek the past. Luke had cautioned against it, wary of losing another student.

Vader did not hold the same fascination for her as he did for Ben, she’d assured him. Her curiosity was about herself. She’d no intention of fulfilling Vader’s legacy any more than she sought to fulfill Luke’s. But she needed to know herself.

Luke’s eyes had looked so sad, she recalled. It was important to hold onto that. His sadness tempered her own anger at him for all that had been lost between them and all she’d been denied.

Abruptly, Ben tugged on her hand.

“We’re going,” he said roughly.

Rey smiled as she trotted beside him. Despite the length of his stride, she had no trouble keeping up with him, unless he was willing to take off at an undignified sprint. She didn’t imagine his cloak would flare quite so dramatically if he did that.

“You don’t like when I think of him, do you?”

Actually, he didn’t seem to like it when she thought of anyone at all, including him. Seemed like a compelling reason to butt out of her head, to be honest.

“He failed his family. Without him, the Empire would never have fallen. Darth Vader would have remained as he should have, would have remained loyal.” His hand tightened around hers. “Nothing is worse than a traitor.”

Rey shook her head minutely. The convolutions of his thought processes were amazing at times.

“Right. And you’re not one, of course.”

“Of course not.”

There it was again: a trace of irony, of self-deprecating humor. He might worship their grandfather, but even so, he blamed the man.

“You aren’t without self-awareness,” she said, turning the idea over in her head. She couldn’t say if that was for the worst or not. After all, a man who was truly deluded was unpredictable. Could be wild when confronted with truths he dared not believe. She’d seen it more than once on Jakku, though it’d been among drunkards and spice addicts than rather than devotees to cultish knock offs of the Sith.

Yet Ben’s honesty with himself did him no good. Not when he was prepared to embrace the worst of himself at all times.

“You flatter me.”

Ahead of them, the defunct processing control station loomed. A large vane extended from the base of the station, glimmering blue as it controlled the flow of the lava flow beneath. Rey narrowed her eyes at it.

“I thought you said defunct. Meaning non-functional.” She lifted their joined hands to point at it. “I know you’re not much for technology, but that looks functional to me.”

“Why do you – I’m great with technology,” he snapped. Rey scoffed. She’d seen his lightsaber. Both Anakin’s and Luke’s were works of art. His was a busted piece of junk – of which, she’d know. “Must just be residual power.”

Rey eyed the fluctuating shield as they walked, very aware that it was in no way residual. The station was operational, though to what purpose she couldn't discern. The lava flowed in a steady, churning stream, folding over itself and splitting apart into burning red. There were no harvester droids. No channels or diversions to cool the lava and refine it.

The Force gathered around her in warning. Whatever was going on here, it was not what Ben had expected.

He led her on, stubbornly ignoring what he too must have felt. They crossed a black bridge of carved rock and made landing onto a metal walkway that rang under their feet until Ben steered her to the broken, pebbly ground.

"Are you mad?" she asked, pulling back on his hand to make him stop.

"I'm told I am. We're going down to the river. I thought you knew."

Rey swallowed deeply.

Luke had detailed some of what had occurred when Darth Vader fell before Obi-Wan Kenobi's blade – truly becoming himself, binding him to the dark even more deeply than his vows, than his massacres, could have done. She'd heard stories, seen reenactments from Jakku's saddest and loneliest and worst actors, but it had never quite occurred to her that Vader's armor was not choice, as Ben's mask was. It was life support. Or, as Luke would have it, a tomb, trapping him and preventing him from going back to the life he might have wished to live.

A bit wishful, that, but she supposed Luke had the right to see it that way.

"He burned," she said softly.

"You won't," Ben told her. "I'll protect you."

Rey bristled despite herself. That'd been the plan. He would waste energy and attention extended his protection bubble in the Force to her and she'd rest up, conserve energy for whenever she finally got the chance to pop him one in the face and get out of here.

If he was following the line of her thoughts, it didn’t show.

“Do you think you’ll be as Luke was to Vader? That you’ll save me?”

Rey concentrated on her steps as they crossed the searing earth. The volcanic pebbles were as sharp as they were hot, biting into her thin, hide boots.

“I’m not here for you. He’s my grandfather, too. I’d like to know.”

Ben slowed as they descended a sharply graded hill, walking with unwarranted caution. He lifted their joined hands up as he helped to steady her on the incline. She fought the urge to drop his hand, using her own very good sense of balance to maintain her footing.

The firelight of the planet reflected off the outline of his mask.

“To know this?”

He clearly thought it was amusingly uncharacteristic of her.

“Not my preference, no, but it clearly is somewhat important. Overall. Galactically.”

“Somewhat,” he agreed.

Rey bit her lip. She was beginning to think if she spent too much time with him, she’d actually come to enjoy his company.

They walked in silence the rest of the way to the lava river, hands clasped between them with fervency and strength they would each deny. Mustafar was unpleasant; the blazing sky and vicious heat, the black sand that almost burned to walk on and the noxious air. In the Force, it was worse.

They were wading through pain, a half century past and yet as vibrant as ever in the Force.

The shore where Anakin Skywalker died, cut apart by his Master, burned, and found salvation in the arms of the galaxy’s worst monster – at least, worst so far, Rey thought, eyeing her companion – awaited them.

It looked almost normal.

Ben knelt reverently on the bank of the river, gloved fingers reaching out to sift basalt pebbles through his hand.

“It happened here.”

Rey wished she dared drop his hand. She shivered as she crouched next to him, stomach churning. She closed her eyes as she tried to center herself in the Force, to push away the wash of pain and anger eddying in this place.

“You can feel it, can’t you?” he asked. His voice was a compelling whisper, and she found herself staring at the black eye guard of his mask. It should have reflected her eyes, but all she saw was the burning sky of Mustafar. “The Force is broken here.”

Rey breathed out unsteadily, shaking her head. That’s not what it was. The Force was scarred, injured by all their grandfather had felt, but not broken.

“Shh, close your eyes. Feel it, Rey. The power you are heir to.”

“It’s not power, Ben,” she bit out. Tears stung her eyes. “It’s evil.”

He tugged on her hand. Her knees fell into the burning sands and she let him put an arm around her back, bringing her in for a hug. Gulping down air, she pressed her head to his shoulder.

“You have all of his gifts,” he told her. He stroked his hand soothingly down her back. “You can let the visions come, if you want.”

That was absolutely the last thing she wanted. She’d worked very hard with Luke to lock away that part of her power, to stop the visions of the blasted past from flooding her waking hours. They haunted her at night, despite all her efforts.

“That’s why you’re here,” Ben said, smile in his voice.

Rey wasn’t sure if he was following his own deluded thoughts through to conclusion or reading her mind.

Either way, she was done.

She jerked back from him, pulling her hand away from him and rubbed roughly at her face. The heat flared around her until she lashed out in the Force, drawing it around her.

Her lungs cleared as she looked down at Ben.

“We’re done. I’m leaving, Ben. Don’t try to stop me.”

Rey regretted the words almost as soon as she spoke them. What would he love more than a duel on this Force forsaken planet? Getting cut up like his idol, she presumed.

Instead of springing up and calling his blade to his hand, he settled back on his heels, hands on his knees. His mask was tilted up at her, as if he awaited command.

“I won’t. But,” he paused for dramatic effect and raised his arm, sweeping a gesture toward the hill they’d come over. “I think they might.”

Rey turned.

“Oh, kriffing hells,” she swore.

She knew that station wasn’t defunct. Should have listened to the Force, she thought to herself as she gazed as the slowly advancing group of aliens. They were of an unfamiliar species – perhaps related to Ugnauts? – but to a one, they wore pieces of scrap metal as armor, their faces covered by skull like masks, shaped and forged from abandoned battle droids.

A leader broke from the group, sliding down the hill of scree and tossing its black cloak over one shoulder. His mask looked nothing like a droid at all.

Rey cast her eyes to the sky above. Honestly, was she the only one without a Vader fixation?


	3. Chapter 3

The Ugnauts led them into the very blatantly obviously functioning control station. Rey shot Ben a pointed look as they entered a vaulted hallway, buttons glowing and hum of electricity overwhelming the distant groan of volcanic earth. He chose to ignore her.

The corridor widened into something resembling a meeting hall. The walls were black, the ceiling high, supported by workmanlike plasteel beams. A central table dominated the space, but Rey's eyes were drawn to the walls. The interior lights and oblong, red-washed windows revealed the purpose the Ugnauts had put the facility to. At this point, Rey wasn’t even surprised.

Ben angled his mask as he pored over the images carved onto the wall. Some were rough hewn and crude. They reminded Rey of her own scratches on the wall inside her AT-AT; more utilitarian than reverent. Others were quite elegant.

She was struck by one in particular. Unlike the many, many clumsy pictures of Vader’s mask, it was more artfully done and more complete. Two men wielding lightsabers, their silhouettes framed against a violent plume of lava. Cold sweat trickled down the back of her neck as she examined it, the Ugnauts apparently willing to give her free rein for that much.

The Force swirled in this place. It was not rent as it had been on the shore of the lava river. There was a swell of anger here, hurt and betrayal, but it was comparatively easy to cope with. She could see the draw of this place, even to non-Force sensitives. The clash of heroes, long dead and distant in time, still thrummed through this room.

The Ugnauts appeared caught up in that very feeling. Rather than manning their stations to keep their captives in line, all but a handful broke formations – chanting, fighting among themselves, scrawling new tributes on the walls.

Rey's eyes followed one as he shoved one of his fellows before she turned back to the vast patchwork of decorations on the wall.

“Is this what we’re here for?” she asked without turning to look at Ben.

He laughed softly.

“No. I had no idea.”

There was delight in his voice.

“I suppose you’ve found your people.”

That was enough to catch his attention. He turned on his heel and stepped forward to loom over her. Rey glared up at him, wishing he’d stop this nonsense. It never worked on her and it just gave her a crick in her neck.

“You are my people,” he snapped.

“Just what I’ve always wanted to hear.”

The Ugnauts were even less pleased that Rey was and hurried forward, chattering in a language she didn’t speak. They carried pikes that reminded Rey of her own, but for the way they crackled with bound shielding at the ends – they were designed to repel lightsaber blades and nearly as effective in battle as a lightsaber itself would be. There were few enough in the galaxy that Rey presumed they had to have been custom built; to what purpose, she did not know. The pikes were weapons to wield against Jedi, of which there were none, or Sith, also none, but for the descendants these people clearly worshiped.

Unless they didn’t. It was a worrisome thought.

“Why haven’t you killed them, then?”

Ben stared at her.

“They’ve captured us, you know,” she added, hands on her hips. “Without you so much as drawing your weapon. Now they’ve led us into their Vader worshiping death cult temple to do Force only knows what to us. I thought if you wanted to sign up for their holonewsletter or something that made sense, but if I’m your people, I don’t know what’s going on, at all.”

“You didn’t draw either,” Ben pointed out.

“ _I’m_ good!” she retorted.

As she so often was, she was glad of the mask. She didn’t have to see the disbelief she knew to be on his face.

"We'll see," he said after a moment. She hated it when he did that, which is probably why he did it. He could feel the anger roiling inside her and clearly relished it. "Anyway, I see no purpose to their destruction."

"You want to keep them," she said, the revelation coming upon her suddenly.

"What – I – No! What use could I have for them?"

"You want to keep them and have them paint your room. Or decorate whatever hellish super weapon you are replacing Starkiller with."

"Maybe I just respect religious minorities."

The vocoder did not betray any irony in his tone, and Rey frowned to prevent herself from smiling. She could sense all the cruelty and violence of who he was. At the end of this, it would still be who he was, and that was when she would have a decision to make: whether to become a kin-killer herself.

She needed to focus on that, not his occasional decent joke.

"Here you are thinking of murder, cousin, and you still say you're the good one."

Rey sighed and turned away from him, rubbing at her forehead. What was most annoying was that she barely even felt his presence in her mind anymore. She'd spent too much time with him.

"Get out of my head," she said wearily. "And while you're at it, come up with a better plan than hiring the Vader worshiping death cult that has captured us."

"We don't know that they're a death cult," Ben said, as if the fine point somehow mattered. Rey wasn't sure what other kind of cult would worship Vader. "But I shall do as you ask."

He swept away from her with a great deal of drama, stepping around the great central table to speak with the Ugnauts. Rey listened to the whisk of his cloaks against the floor, his heavy footfalls, as she continued to examined the sketchy sigils and pictograms inscribed on the wall before her. It was foolish to think there was meaning here – after all, the cult could be no older than Ben himself. It certainly didn't date even to the time of Vader himself. But the images were compelling in themselves.

There was something about Vader that generations continued to reimagine and reinvent. Maybe it wasn't about the man, but the people who needed him.

And where does that leave you? She thought ruefully. She was hardly better off than wayward Ben, though she thought not praying to the helmet of her deceased grandfather had to count for something.

No, she sought meaning in the living.

Ben was immersed in conversation with the Ugnaut leader when she pried herself away. It was something of a sight – the squat, angry Ugnaut with his face covered by a helm that mimicked Vader's only in the broadest sense, jabbering up at the still and silent Ben, towering above him implacably.

"You understand him?" Rey asked once she had made her way over. The Ugnaut glanced to her and then back to Ben.

"We had many Ugnaut workers on Starkiller," Ben explained, holding up one hand to halt the incomprehensible – to Rey, at least – oration of the Ugnaut.

"And you were their supervisor? Don't you have underlings for that, or is middle management the secret discipline of the Knights of Ren?"

"I wished," Ben bit out, "to ensure they followed my designs."

Rey's stomach plummeted at the words.

"You didn't."

The Ugnaut was getting impatient, hopping from one foot to the other. Rey had a bad feeling that that. He was too indulgent of them, given their captivity.

He knew who they were. She shot Ben an accusatory look, but he processed that as only being about Starkiller. If he told the cultists they were Vader's children, she would reconsider the value of traditional Skywalker practices. Like strangulation.

"Of course, I did, cousin. I told you I was good with technology," he replied.

The smugness in his voice would have been well suited to the kind of squabble she'd seen among pilots at the sabacc table. Maybe, in another life, Rey would have grown up arguing and joking with her cousin about small feats to impress their parents. But it was entirely dissonant when Rey recalled the horrors of Starkiller base. She'd been unconscious when the Hosnian system was destroyed; that merely meant the deaths, the pain of the Force itself, haunted her in her sleep.

With that, Ben turned back to the Ugnaut, grunting out something in the man's own language only to get a sharp prod in the chest by his weapon. It sparked against his cortosis weave armor. Ben gave no indication he'd felt it.

"What is he saying?"

Ben's vocoder crackled as he sighed.

"I'm negotiating our release."

"They'll just let us go?" she asked. She smiled hesitantly at the Ugnaut leader who, in turn, excitedly turned to his fellow cultists. One of them smiled through the grate of his battle-droid mask. Rey waved carefully to him. "Even though they know who we are?"

Ben didn't contradict her assertion. He seemed approving, instead, that she'd figured it out. She resisted the urge to smack him for the condescension.

Their heritage seemed like it would be a sticking point with the cultists rather than an asset, in her opinion. Vader worshiping cultists probably had a taste for Vader's grandchildren. Hopefully not literally, but then again, she'd heard stories of such things. Luke insists Ewoks were not nearly so cuddly as they appeared.

"There may be... conditions," Ben admitted.

Another Ugnaut stepped forward, and then three more, arguing with Ben until he made an aggravated sound and drew his lightsaber.

Rey's hand shot out, closing around his wrist before he could ignite it.

"I thought you were talking you're way out of this," she reminded him.

"You'd let me do it if you knew what they were saying."

He shook off her grasp, returning his blade to his belt. His shoulders slouched in what was most definitely a sulk.

"They say we have to kiss."

Rey opened her mouth but no sound came. She glanced warily at the Ugnauts and gulped down a few breathes, steadying herself. The Ugnauts betrayed none of their intentions, but she could sense their avid interest in her and Ben. The leader again gestured between the two of them.

She shook her head slowly.

"You're making that up." He shifted on his feet and she felt a clutch of desperate hope, realizing she was at least partially right. "They didn't say that!"

Ben half turned to the Ugnaut cultists. The leader again spoke, loudly, gesturing with his electrified pike. He jabbed it toward Rey and then to Ben. He bowed deeply and then settled back on his heels, expectantly. Clearly, he did want the two of them to do something.

"You're right," he admitted. "They want a true born heir."

Rey hated that she gasped. Her hand came up to cover her mouth and she stumbled back a step. Ben reached out to take her gently by the shoulders. It would have been far better for him to hold her in the Force, brutal and strong and hateful as his grasp had been back on Takodana. She kicked him furiously to make him let go, but he held fast.

"Well, we're not doing that!"

"A marriage," Ben clarified.

"That isn't any better!" she hissed.

"The elder has already pronounced the blessings. A kiss will suffice."

Rey stopped struggling, eying him warily. He wanted this. All his intimations about their relationship, of what they had in common. They weren't just about convincing her to join him on the Dark Side. He would have agreed to the marriage on the spot, if he thought for a moment she would as well.

But he was fully aware that she didn't want to marry him and that the best characterization of her opinion of him was tolerant disgust.

"A kiss?"

She mulled it over. It was better than bearing an heir to Vader's legacy for this pack of weirdos. And if it got them out of here without needing to kill said weirdos, then she supposed she could make that sacrifice for the sake of the Light – and Ben's already tarnished soul.

He nodded.

She straightened her shoulders. She could do that. She'd just close her eyes or – maybe he could keep the mask on?

"A kiss and they'll let us go?" she asked for confirmation.

He used the Force to draw her in closer, wound into her robes like fingers would, careful even as it demanded.

"We'll be wed." She shot him a look and he amended, "In their minds. They have no further demands."

That wasn't actually a yes.

"It doesn't appear that we have better options."

Even he weren't her cousin, weren't a murderer, she could have expected it to be awkward. He was rather tall.

Rey shuffled in even closer to him, allowing him to rest his hands on her waist. His thumb hooked idly into her obi.

She'd never actually kissed anyone before. Was it wrong that she hoped the same of him? She dismissed the thought immediately as unwarranted and steeled herself, nodding swiftly as a signal to him.

Rey wrapped her arms around his shoulders, feeling him tense underneath her hands. She hummed soothingly, much as she would for BB-8, before leaning up on her tip toes.

She pressed a kiss to the flat metal plate that was where his mouth would be; Ben made a disappointed sound.

“Do you think that counted?” she asked.

"No."

Rey swayed to the side in his arms, looking to the Ugnauts. The looked as grouchy as they seemed in the Force.

"True born heir," she grumbled. Some days, Jakku seemed like a perfectly good option.

"I will have to take off the mask."

Rey raised her eyebrows at him. Obviously.

"I appreciate the warning."

"That means let go," he added.

Hastily, she removed her hands from his body and looked aside, face twisted up with embarrassment. Her cheeks weren't burning. Mustafar was just really hot.

He lifted both hands to the fastenings connecting his helmet to his cowl, clicking them open and tugging the helmet off with inelegant haste. He dropped the helmet to the floor, where it hit with a deep and sonorous clank, before brushing his hands through his dark hair. It was damp with sweat, sticking to his neck and brow line.

Rey listened to her heart beat loudly in her ears as she watched him. She couldn't hear the Ugnauts at all now. She could barely see where they were, for the sake of watching her cousin. Behind him, on the wall, the carvings of Vader shone in the flickering red light, a reminder of all the bizarre turns in her life.

"How do I look?" he asked nastily.

"Worse."

Heat and pallor did not favor him. He would look better on Jakku, she thought distantly, tanned by the sun instead of hiding away in shadow.

Ben's dark eyes watched her steadily. He'd made no move to touch her, but his fingers flexed at his side. He wished for the mask again, to hide his face, to hide his eyes.

"You're not thinking of your pilot."

Rey exhaled unsteadily. The Ugnauts were watching them avidly, impatience growing as Rey and Ben continued to thwart the will of their leader. Perhaps if she'd had just a tiny bit more warning that she was going to be wed to her cousin – temporarily, pretend – she might have an easier time sealing the deal.

She braced herself as she stepped once more into Ben's arms. This time his movements were stilted, like the flickering holo of a dejarik piece. His hand moved to her back in small stages, cut apart into each frame of animation. She could barely feel the outline of his large hand through her robes and it was all the more distracting for how faint the touch was.

"He's not –" she wetted her lips, focusing on her own hands as she knotted her fingers into his robe. "He's not my pilot."

Poe was many wonderful things, but that was most certainly not their relationship.

"Or your traitor friend." There was an unpleasant glint in Ben's eyes. He was building to something truly terrible, thoughts of Finn giving him the kind of distraction he needed from Rey; how horribly similar we are, Rey thought. She couldn't handle this either. "The next time I see him, I will show him how the First Order –"

Rey lunged abruptly, cutting off Ben's words as she pulled him down, mashing her lips against his.


	4. Chapter 4

Rey squeezed her eyes shut as she kissed Ben, counting down the seconds until she thought the cultists would deem the marriage consummated. Her brain screeched to a sudden halt at the word. Ben had said they didn't – but oh, sweet Force, she hoped they wouldn't have to go that far.

Ben's mouth was soft and hesitant against hers. He was barely kissing her back. His hands had fallen to his side, as if he wished to pull away.

“Come on, Ben,” she said against his mouth. She cracked one eye open, trying to get a glimpse of the Ugnaut leader. “We have to sell this.”

He jerked away from her abruptly. The Force crackled with his anger, ready to leap into his grasp, and she settled down on her feet, shocked at his reaction.

Rey searched his face for an explanation. His mouth was drawn into a thin, dour line, jaw trembling against how tightly he’d clenched it.

“You had a point, earlier,” he said, voice low and threatening.

And he again drew his lightsaber. It blazed to life, burning the air with its unstable, barely leashed power. Mustafar’s volcanos already cast the world in red. His lightsaber deepened the effect, highlighting the scar she’d left him and the fury in his eyes.

Warily, Rey unhooked her own lightsaber.

“I don’t understand. We can leave this place without trouble.”

“I like trouble.”

There was nothing in his voice. None of his anger and none of the odd humor she’d somehow come to expect.

Rey shook her head. It was the kind of stupid, entirely untrue thing he said sometimes. She could never tell if it was bravado or wishful thinking, but what hurt was the fact that it sounded like something Han would have said.

“You don’t like anything,” she argued.

Rey firmed her grasp on her unlit lightsaber, circling Ben as she tried to decide if she should strike first. It was a danger either way: Ben’s strength and reach could easily lead to a quick victory for him, but to act as the aggressor was a spiritual danger, according to Luke. That too would be a victory for Ben – or, more accurately, for Snoke.

Ben gave her a humorless smile. For a breathless heartbeat, she thought something in him would relent and he would extinguish his blade.

Her hopes were so often false with him.

“I like power.”

“You mean you like it when you don’t feel helpless,” she said. “Me too.”

He narrowed his eyes and turned on his heel, swinging at the Ugnaut leader. Rey used the Force to get between them, moving faster than her muscles would allow, and ignited her lightsaber. His lightsaber shed red sparks that lingered in her field of vision, his blade crackling against hers.

The Ugnauts chattered angrily behind them and she heard their own weapons come to life.

“Why are you doing this, Ben?”

“There’s nothing for us to learn here and I’ve tired of their games.”

That most definitely wasn’t it.

Ben shoved her forward with his lightsaber and lunged. She struck his blade down, forcing the tip to skim the metal floor. A great, glowing divot melted the floor between them and she had to dance away from it, realizing very suddenly that she’d stopped using the Force to protect herself from heat.

The Ugnauts swarmed forward to surround her – any hope it was protective was dashed as one of them thrust his electrified pike firmly into her side. Rey screamed, legs collapsing beneath her. Her lightsaber closed down as it dropped to the floor and an Ugnaut hurriedly snapped it up.

Ben’s attention followed the blade, as it always did.

Rey glared up at him.

“You planned this,” she accused.

Instead of replying, he moved quickly, striking off the head of the Ugnaut leader. Rey shuddered as the Ugnaut’s life disappeared into the Force. His body fell to the floor, stump of his neck left cauterized and noxious smelling. Rey didn’t see where the head landed. Wherever it was, it caused no reaction among his erstwhile followers, who closed around her, weapons raised. Clearly, they thought of her as their new captive; this was where failing to honor the deal got them.

Ben paced the length of the room, chest heaving with anger and snarl on his face. He struck out, once, blade searing through the central table. He kicked a piece to the side and brandished his lightsaber at one Ugnaut, apparently designated by Ben as the new leader. The blaze of his blade threw his angular features into sharp, frightening relief as he shouted at the man.

The Ugnaut looked between Ben and Rey, confusion plain. His jowly face moved beneath his mask as he spoke with Ben.

“What are you telling him?” Rey asked. “Negotiating a price?”

Ben thrust the tip of his lightsaber at the Ugnaut, stopping a hairsbreadth from his mask. Rey watched as the metal sizzled, melting long, thin furrows into the old battle droid’s face. Ben tightened his grip behind the red quillions, leather creaking as he readied himself for a kill.

He snapped off another demand to the Ugnaut, who gabbled furiously in response.

“What is it?” Rey asked again, feeling herself lose patience. She didn’t need this – didn’t need his aid. She’d not come here to kill, but if they didn’t let go of her right now, she couldn’t say she would bother being kind to her new captors on her way out.

“The deal stands.”

Rey blinked at him.

“What – the deal? The ‘we have to kiss to seal our fake marriage for the insane cultists’ deal?”

“Yes. That deal.”

“You killed their leader!”

And, additionally, had flinched at the last second when she tried to formalize their fake marriage. She wondered suddenly if that is what he’d been telling the Ugnauts – to give him another chance.

Ben shrugged beneath his voluminous robes.

“They expect little else from Vader’s heirs.”

That was… a fair point, Rey had to admit. For once, she wasn’t cursing her heritage. She didn’t suppose she would, in the future, again find herself dealing with a cult that worshipped her family for being prone to murderous Dark Side breakdowns, but she could appreciate that this particular cult appeared to understand what they were in for.

Rey glanced to her side before standing uneasily. Her side still ached from where they’d got her earlier, but no one moved to hit her again with a force pike. She let her hands hang limply and then looked back at her cousin quizzically. His face was blank, earlier anger once more tamped down in check.

“What did I do wrong?” she asked.

Ben draw his lightsaber back, held in a ready position directly in front of him, stance squared up defensively.

“You agreed to the kiss,” she reminded him. She stepped forward, sparing a quick look at the Ugnauts before calling her lightsaber back to her hand. Pointedly raising her eyebrows at Ben, she made sure he was looking when she clipped it back onto her belt, next to her blaster. After a moment, he ceded the point and closed down his blade as well, though he kept it in his hand. “And then you freaked out and decided you’d rather just kill everyone. I’m a bit insulted.”

“You used that name. His name,” Ben eventually said.

Rey was taken aback. She was fairly sure she hadn’t.

“I did not. If you think I want to imagine kissing Finn right now…”

She felt a cold pit in her stomach form at the idea and hugged her arms around herself. She didn’t want to ruin what she had – or might have, someday – with Finn by thinking of him while she kissed her cousin. This, with Ben, the trip, their ancestry, even this absurd cult, was separate. It had to remain separate.

“Not –” He brought his fist up, jabbing a finger at her. “You should call me by my real name.”

Rey stared at him, brow furrowed.

“I don’t know how I ever forget you’re insane.”

“Call me my real name and I’ll let them live.”

Rey looked to the Ugnauts, felt their decidedly odd excitement build as she walked to Ben. They were thrilled at the proceedings, murder and all, though it was clear they did not understand what was passing between Vader’s heirs.

Rey reached out with her hands to take Ben’s in hers. She looked down at them, pressed her lips together as she rubbed the leather beneath one thumb. The Force was oppressive around her and she felt a terrible ache.

“Alright,” she agreed. “Kiss me so we can leave.”

He waited and she sighed, eyes closing against the words she had to speak. She didn’t know how someone she despised so much could break her heart.

“Kylo Ren,” she added quietly.

Ben moved with suddenness and violence she had to brace herself against, swooping down to grab her by the waist, one hand firm on her jaw as he kissed her. She couldn't pull away, so she had to fight back, kissing him hard, with surety she didn't know she possessed. Her fingers knotted in his soft hair and his teeth sank briefly into her bottom lip. Her pulse pounded in her head as she pressed in closer against him.

The Ugnauts gathered in a semi-circle around them and, as one, struck their pikes down against the metal floor.

Rey broke from Ben, hand flying up to her mouth. He was breathing heavily, a flush across his pale cheeks, visible even in Mustafar's light. His lips were slightly parted. She deserved the opportunity for revenge, she decided suddenly. His lips had gone unbitten.

Ben raised his fingers to his mouth before clenched his hand into a fist, thrusting it down to hold at his side. He blinked rapidly, pushing away whatever it was he felt. Rey could make him feel it again, she knew she could.

She stepped forward, only to find the Ugnauts barring her way, again pounding their staves against the floor.

"What?" she asked irritably.

Ben looked disconcerted as he forced his attention to the Ugnauts.

"I don't know."

The Force bunched up, for once not a result of the brewing storm hidden behind Ben's taut posture and casual cruelty. She could feel him reaching out as she did the same; his touch in the Force was anything but tentative, for all that he was careful not to disrupt the flow of currents with his own turmoil. The tension raised the hairs on Rey's skin and she felt a cold trickle of sweat down the back of her neck as she turned in place, taking in all the Ugnauts around her.

"I don't think we have anything to fear from them," she said, words coming slowly as she tried to pin down the warning the Force was giving her.

"No?"

With that, Ben turned aside. If they weren't in danger, and if their obligation fulfilled, he had little attention to spare for the Ugnauts. He Force pushed a stolid little bundle of man, sending him skidding back half a meter, before returning to the study of the etchings of Vader. Why he thought he'd draw meaning from the pictograms a bunch of half-mad Ugnauts had made when they didn't even have the Force – his prime qualifier for respect – was beyond her.

Rey jolted as that same little Ugnaut, half paunch and half raw, snarling anger beneath his battered battle droid mask, launched himself forward at one of his fellows. The tension in the air snapped into a sudden, raging fire all the other Ugnauts fell upon each other, swinging their electrified pikes at faces and, more cunningly, thrusting through the gaps of ill pieced together armor.

Her lightsaber flew into her hand, igniting before she fully knew what she was doing. Across the room, her eyes found Ben's. A smile curved his generous lips and he shook his head. When he lit his blade, it was only to slice carefully into the wall, working against his lightsaber's inefficient power settings to try to cut the panel away.

"Ben!" Rey shouted. She threw out one hand, knocking an Ugnaut back from his opponent, who quickly advanced now that he had an opening. She loosed a frustrated growl, smacking his staff down with her lightsaber and then shoving him down to the floor. She pointed and hoped he'd obey. "Ben! I need your help here. They're going to kill each other!"

"You were right about them being a death cult."

Rey threw an incredulous look over her shoulder. That wasn't what he was supposed to be getting out of this.

"It does explain why they were unconcerned with the death of their elder."

"I suppose they just envied him. You honored him with your blade," she sneered, gritting her teeth as she clobbered three more Ugnauts with the Force, willing them to just sleep off whatever was driving them now. They fell to the floor, unconscious, and she immediately had to stop their friends from helping them along to death. "Help me stop them!"

"Why?"

Rey's breath caught in her chest. She felt stupid to be disappointed in him.

"More to the point: how? Let them take care of themselves, cousin. They're apparently quite fulfilled."

"It's wrong, Ben!" She didn't care if he considered it a slip. She didn't care that he was never less Ben Solo than when he spoke so callously of death. "Tell me you don't want a happy little Vader cult to carry on, validating all your delusions. You're really going to give that up?"

That was actually enough to stop him. He'd bent double as he cut the wall, trying to keep from slagging it despite his unstable and unsuitable blade. He was still kneeling as he glared in her direction.

"They aren't delusions."

"Tell them to stop!"

Ben straightened and barked something in the Ugnaut language. The fighting did not come to an immediate stand-still, but slowed as they gave confused looks to each other and him. One man continued pummeling his cult-mate upon the broken table and Rey held out her hands, pulling them apart to send the two Ugnauts flying across the room from each other. The fell indelicately to the floor and she stared them down when they grumbled, unwilling to care much about bruises in the face of the wanton violence around her.

There were already several dead on the floor. Many more convulsed, shocks from the pikes kindling in their nervous systems to cause repeated seizures.

Rey forced down her rising gorge and looked instead to Ben, jaw set as she closed down her lightsaber.

"Ask them what they think they are doing."

Ben looked much aggrieved, but nonetheless translated her question. Several of the Ugnauts shouted angrily at him in response, pointing their staves at Rey in accusation. She raised her eyebrows at them. She wasn't going to apologize for saving lives.

"They wish to consecrate our marriage with their blood," Ben eventually said. He sounded both surprised and mildly intrigued.

"Tell them no!"

He hesitated.

"Tell them!"

He rolled his eyes, but at least had the grace to do as she said. This time, a sole Ugnaut spoke. She couldn't be sure, but Rey thought there was a whining edge to his voice.

Ben turned back to her, apparently of the mind that translation was unnecessary. He was right. Rey pounded her fist against her hip in frustration, surveying the bloodied Ugnauts. She could see burns underneath the scuffed up armor they wore. A few bore red-welling scratches and bite marks.

They all wanted to die for her.

"It's a familiar feeling," Ben said.

Rey shook her head, denying the truth of it.

"But that's why you're here with me," Ben said. His voice had a smugness to it; he'd just now figured it out. "And not with your Resistance friends."

"It was easier when I was just a scavenger," she muttered. Before she was Luke Skywalker's daughter. Before she was the heir to the light Ben refused to be.

Ben considered her a moment longer. If he'd smiled, Rey knew she would have drawn on him – the second time in a day, to opposite purpose each time. Instead, he seemed sympathetic, oddly kind. He nodded to her and left behind his project of cutting the wall apart for a keepsake.

They had many terrible things in common. This trip was a constant reminder of that.

Rey had tripped into a life of purpose and meaning. Destiny. And she didn’t want it any more than Ben did.

All she’d ever really wanted was kinship.

"You make a good point. I dislike tripping on bodies and there would be an awful lot of them on the way out. Give me your hand."

Rey thrust it out blindly, watching the Ugnauts instead of him, and felt Ben interlace his fingers with hers. She felt the Force surge as he sought her power. It blazed, as it always did, with all the terrible things he was. For the moment, however, he was focused to the same purpose she was.

"You will not kill yourselves," Rey said fiercely to the Ugnauts, pushing the idea with all her strength. The Force never needed translation, but she heard Ben say something a moment later, in the Ugnaut's language. She felt the compulsion ripple through the room, butting up against the high emotion of the cultists. She frowned and continued, "You will live. That is how you honor Vader's will. You will live."

The cultists straightened, eyes going blank as they repeated Ben's words. She let out an uneasy breath.

"You didn't program them with something else, right?"

Ben let go of her hand and brushed a lock of her hair away from her face with one finger, skimming across her jaw. She shut her eyes, pushing away the sensation. She could still feel him, power threaded through hers, terrifying in its intensity.

Ben didn't bother with her question. She could feel what they'd done, that it was together and by one will.

"The dark can be benevolent, Rey.” She opened her eyes, meeting his. His touch was scaldingly light along the length of her neck as he murmured, “I wish you would accept that."

"It's not worth it,” she bit out.

Ben dropped his hand and backed away, eyes again shuttered. Rey wondered if he even needed the mask when he could close down so thoroughly.

But she appreciated getting a moment to compose herself.

Rey had spent too much time confused by the wealth of power and emotion in this place. It was unbefitting a Jedi. And more importantly, unbefitting an officer of the Resistance. She had a multitude of purposes in allowing Ben to keep her captive, she reminded herself. It wasn’t all self-discovery.

"What is?" Ben asked rhetorically. He glanced to his work on the wall, trying to decide whether he really wanted the carvings after all. Rey rolled her eyes. Of course he did.

"Five minutes," she told him. "And you're carrying it."

He put himself back to her task, leaving Rey awkwardly amidst the compelled Ugnauts. They'd recovered themselves and now looked sheepishly to each other, unclear exactly on why they'd wanted to kill each other so badly moments ago and also why they were so determined not to do it now. They spoke to each other in confusion, trying to puzzle out the radical change to church philosophy. But, one thing was clear, it was a bolt from above and absolutely true. Rey heard "Vader" spoken several times, in hushed and awed terms.

Well. At least it worked.

The new Ugnaut leader bent down to retrieve something from the floor and scurried over to her.

Rey's stomach flipped over as she realized he was presenting her with Ben's mask.

"Thank you," she said carefully, trying not to pitch forward as she took it from him.

The stupid thing was much heavier than it looked, all actuators, servos, and visor electronics. She wondered if the filters on it were any better than a stormtrooper's helmet. That could be useful information, she thought with detachment. Knowing precisely the limitations of Ben's equipment. No odder to put it on than to examine his lightsaber, she decided.

The mask was nothing a person merely slipped on. She applied the Force to lift it above her head with one hand, ducking and gathering her hair to the side so it would not catch on any servomotors. It was too heavy to settle on her shoulders, so instead she held between her palms as she peered through it.

Her breath echoed in her ears and she wetted her lips, tamping down the anxious urge to hyperventilate. The air tasted slightly colder, sterile and odorless. She'd begun to forget the sulfurous smell of Mustafar, but now its absence startled her.

Ben's head's up display sparked to life, brightening the port of the mask and sharpening focus. Telemetry readings spun endlessly down the left edge of the display. Environmental conditions were within tolerable limits, she read.

Everything was unreal through the mask, marked and categorized and studied and entirely distant. She wondered how she would sound if she spoke.

Rey put her tongue to her upper lip, considering what she would say as Kylo Ren.

"What are you doing?" Ben asked harshly.

Rey blinked in surprise. He'd crossed the room in two long strides, robes snapping around him.

She lifted the mask off and, with the Force's aid, lobbed it at him. He caught it right before it smacked into his chest, hands clutching it close, expression screwed up in disgust and what she could only identify as hurt.

She already wanted it back. Knew it would tell her what she needed to know about him.

"Examining your weaknesses," Rey returned with false bravado. She felt unsteady. Even a moment in his shoes was too much, whatever justification she gave herself.

"You weren't," he said. His shoulder trembled with his anger, his fingers squeaking against the metal of the mask as his grip grew too tight. Strength alone, not the Force. He left no dents. "It doesn't suit you."

"Then I suppose I make a poor bride for you." Rey put her hands on her hips, cocking her head. "Are you finished?"

If he wasn't, it didn't matter. Rey was done waiting. She turned away from him and strode from the room. She had to step over bodies on her way out.

She didn't run back to the shuttle. But she didn't remember getting there either, taking the pilot's seat, starting the lift off sequence, or huddling up, knees to her chest and fists pressed to her eyes.

"Just go," she told herself. "Just go. Just leave him. Don't wait."

She wasn't going to do that. The Resistance waited for her. Finn waited for her.

And she stayed here, waiting for Ben, hoping she’d figure him out and herself, too.

Ben took far less time than she expected. She heard him stomp up the gangplank to the ship – his ship, a gift from Leader Snoke, he said – and clattered around below decks. Securing his prize, she was sure. Soon, the storm that was his Force presence clouded the cockpit. He made an annoyed sound and settled into the co-pilot's chair next to her.

"I suppose you are the better pilot," he said.

Rey jerked. She unfolded herself carefully, forcing her breathing to even out as she swiped at her eyes.

"You don't believe that."

"I don't. But I thought it would be nice to say."

She didn't want to play stupid games with him anymore. She just wanted to leave.

"Did you get what you wanted?"

Ben swiveled in his chair, checking over the pre-flight readouts and making sure she'd done the sequence correctly. She tried not to take it as an insult and failed immediately. His ship had nothing at all on the Falcon for finickiness. He made a soft humming sound and, for a moment, they worked in coordination, finalizing pre-flight and easing the ship up off the landing pad.

"I learned nothing of value on Mustafar – at least not regarding Grandfather." His voice was pleasant as he asked, "And you?"

Rey ignored him, looking between the instruments and the roiling clouds ahead of them as she piloted them through the electrostatic storms of Mustafar’s skies. She could feel his attention on her when it should have been on co-piloting. He instantly scoffed, sending a tendril in the Force reminding her she’d just now taken offense at him helping her pilot. She brushed him off forcefully, slamming her mind closed to him as well as she could.

It was easier with other Force users, Luke said. Skywalkers had too strong a connection to each other. Their shields always frayed.

Rey thought of the violence of the Force near the lava, the cult that wanted to die for them, that kiss and Ben’s awful mask. How close she’d come to feel to him in less than a day.

"Nothing at all."

"Where to next, cousin? Back to your precious Resistance?"

She resented the offer.

“Would you really let me go?” she asked.

Rey could feel him studying her.

“No.”

She cast him a sidelong glance. His shields weren’t as strong as hers. They fluctuated too much with his moods, leaving him unguarded and vulnerable at the strangest moments, his rage his only defense. But not now. She couldn’t read, on his face or in the Force, if he was aware of how much things had changed for her. If he knew she was willing to stay and see this through, no matter where they ended up.

But he hadn’t put the mask back on, she realized, and she didn’t want him to.

Rey sat back and gazed into the black of space. She'd hated the stars for a long time, when she lived on Jakku, almost in equal measure to how much she loved them. They were a beautiful taunt. Now, the freedom she had to travel among them was almost terrifying. She had to stop and tell herself she could have this. She didn't have to wait for anyone to give it to her.

"Tatooine," she said after a moment.

Maybe Naboo after that. Corellia, on a day when Ben was too tired to say no and the worst of his temper already spent.

If Ben heard her thought, he ignored it. The dark is benevolent, Rey thought with a shiver. Maybe benevolent enough to let go, with enough time.

He nodded.

"Tatooine."

Rey exhaled the breath she'd been holding and leaned forward, punching in the coordinates for the navicomputer to calculate the jumped.

Tatooine didn't seem all that bad. Maybe a little overly familiar, what with all the sand and scavengers, but she was certainly up for taking in a podrace.

She felt the hair on the back of her neck prickle as Ben laid his hand over hers, pushing the hyperspace lever forward, turning the stars to blinding streaks of light.

Eventually, she hoped they’d find their way home.


End file.
